


The Boy

by historymiss



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Oneshot, it's kidfic jim but not as we know it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2566388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[You have been trained for this day. Raised in darkness, you are woken one day with a gun already placed in your too-small hands. The enemies are at the gate, they tell you. You are dressed and sent to the door.</p><p>The failure greets you with fire in his eyes. You never thought he would be this angry. You drop the gun. You cannot kill him.</p><p>Failure, it seems, is genetic.]</p><p>(Bucky Barnes finds that HYDRA cloned him- what happens next, however, isn't up to him)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy

_You have been trained for this day. Raised in darkness, you are woken one day with a gun already placed in your too-small hands. The enemies are at the gate, they tell you. You are dressed and sent to the door._

_The failure greets you with fire in his eyes. You never thought he would be this angry. You drop the gun. You cannot kill him._

_Failure, it seems, is genetic._

\---

They meet in the kitchen of Bucky's flat after the mission- like Steve's, it's beige, smelling of dust. Bucky doesn't spend much time here, and it shows. they all seem out of place, still in their tactical gear. Sam and Sharon cluster at the door, Sam practically vibrating with anger. Sharon sits on a stool at the counter, perfectly still. Steve looks as if he's going to be sick.

Bucky's set the kid on the couch, draped in one of his thrift-store sweaters. Like this, he looks harmless.

"You can't keep him." Sam's voice is reasonable, but raised. The tone of a parent telling a kid to _put that down right now_. Bucky doesn't look up. It's not up for debate, so he doesn't debate it.

The kid looks back at him, all blue eyes in a too-angular face. Bucky cocks his head in an unspoken question, holds up a granola bar from his utility belt. The kid takes it.

"Godammit, am I speaking to myself here?"

Sharon shushes Sam and squats next to Bucky. "There are orphanages Fury used for kids like him." She doesn't quite touch him- both Bucky and the kid feel the deliberate distance. It doesn't bother either of them too much- they're used to it

"They'll know the best way to raise-" she swallows, searches for the words. "Someone... like him."

Unspoken, the implication is still clear- someone raised to be a weapon, someone given the cold comfort of HYDRA, and of the Red Rooms. Bucky shakes his head.

"Not an option."

"Does he have a name?" That's Steve. Bucky looks over, tries to convey a thank you without actually saying it (the words are too hard, these days, and would stupid anyway). He speaks some soft Russian to the kid, who looks up, swallows the last bit of granola bar, and replies.

"What?" Sam sits forward. "What'd he say?"

Bucky runs his hands through his hair, sits back. This is gonna be tough.

"He says they call him Boy."  

\---

_The failure keeps up a steady stream of words the entire time he shows you around the apartment- you watch him warily, because everything, so far, is a test, and you know that if you fail this one, you are doomed forever._

_He calls you 'champ', with a hesitation, a hitch in the breath that speaks volumes of discomfort that are only underlined by the way he can't look you in the eye._

_The first time you try to kill him (sharpening the end of a pen into a point, leaping at his neck as he walks to the refrigerator) he simply sighs, crushes the weapon in his metal hand, and shakes his head as if something has been confirmed._

_He doesn't punish you. In this, too, he is a failure._

\---

Natasha glares at him across the formica tabletop, setting her spoon very deliberately onto the edge of her cup with a clink of metal on china.

"I'm not playing house with you."

Bucky blinks.

"I didn't ask you to?"

"You were about to." She tosses her hair, a practised motion that's as false as her deliberately casual tone. "I know how it goes. The Winter Soldier adopts a stray, and who better to teach a kid raised in the Red Rooms than- well." She raises one perfect eyebrow at him. "You know the rest."

"Not as well as you do, apparently." Bucky mutters, half to himself, settling better into the red-and-white striped banquette. "Okay, so I was gonna ask for your help. So sue me. The kid needs people who understand him-"

Natasha cuts him off.

"He _needs_ to be taken away from everything even remotely related to his origin." One delicate sip punctuates her point. "That child was born and bred to fight in your image. Do you really think being raised by you, or me, or anyone remotely connected to his past, will help?"

Bucky slumps back, all argument drained from him.

"He's my responsibility."

"We all got clean breaks." Natasha leans forward, then, to close the distance between her and Bucky, to reach out a hand and touch him on his metal wrist. "Give this boy the same courtesy."

He looks at her, and though he says nothing, does nothing, there's no sign of defeat in him. Natasha sighs.

"Just don't do anything stupid, alright?"

\---

_The other man- the American- he comes and stays with you when the failure isn't here. He looks at you curiously, when he thinks you can't see. When you talk together, he makes a visible effort to be cheerful. To treat you like a child._

_You want to hate him for it (you haven't been a child for a long, long time, if at all), but you can't._

_Instead, you watch him. He doesn't move like you expected. In the bunker you were told that this man, this American, is all brash bravado, unthinking machismo that covers typical American insecurity. You thought he'd be aggressive. You expected a bully._

_Instead, he talks to you gently. He moves slowly, asks you before moving into your space, picks up objects with gentle care._

_He moves like the failure, and this confuses you._

\---

The kid's been living with him for two weeks. Bucky would like to say that there's been improvements, but- it's only been two weeks. Cracks form, letting in light, but there's darkness, there, too. They live in shared silence, because neither of them has much to say to the other.

Decisions will have to be made, and soon. But Bucky cannot bring himself to make them when they haven't even talked.

"They used to call you the failure." The kid says, one morning, as they mutually stare at their breakfast cereal. Bucky looks up. 

The kid swallows, his voice cracked, dry. "I was told to call you the failure."

"Cause of what I did?"

They're speaking Russian. The boy doesn't know any other language, even if he speaks it the way Bucky does: slurred, slow. 

"Yes." He pushes his pancakes around with his fork. "What's your real name?"

"James." Bucky doesn't smile, not yet, but there's warmth in his tone. "James Barnes. You can call me Bucky, or Jim, or whatever."

"Bucky." The kid tries it out. It feels foreign in his mouth. "That's my name, as well?"

"Not if you don't want it to be." Bucky pauses. "I'm named after my- our- dad, but-"

The kid bites his lip, so like his reflection Bucky could cry. "It's not me, is it?"

"You get to decide that." Bucky leans forward, the way Natasha did, the way Steve doesn't, the way Sam won't. He holds out his hand, the good one, the flesh one, the one that remains of the soldier that followed Steve.

"You get to choose how things are gonna be."

\---

_Every so often, you visit a man. He doesn't get much older, but you do, and it fills him with pride to watch you grow. He is not quite a father, not quite a brother, but you're related all the same, which means you get to tease him about the passing years, and he gets to embarrass you without mercy._

_It's good, to be embarrassed by someone that loves you._

_You have other family, of course. You're raised by an elderly woman with a big smile and a lot of war stories, and grow up with aunts and uncles, and a redhaired lady who smiles when she sees you, proud and somehow sad._

_You look forward to the man's visits the most, though. The way he walks in, wary but warm, quirks a grin._

_"Hey champ."_

_That isn't your name. You chose something else._

_It's much, much more than that._


End file.
